Martial Law: Sierra Leone Orders Citizens to Stay Confined to Homes for Three Days to Combat Ebola Spread

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Photo Credit: Natural NewsBy J. D. Heyes.

Increasingly, as the Ebola virus continues to spread and kill, authorities in Africa are becoming more authoritarian in their attempts to contain the deadly disease — steps that look eerily similar to those imposed on Americans in the days following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and which could be imposed again were Ebola to make it to the U.S.

In Sierra Leone, authorities recently ordered people to remain inside their homes for three days later this month, ostensibly in a bid to shut down the spread of the virus, which has now killed nearly 2,300 people all across West Africa.

Abdulai Bayratay, a government spokesman, told The Associated Press that the government is ordering people to remain inside their houses on Sept. 19, 20 and 21. Those dates were chosen to allow people time to get what they needed — food, medicines and other provisions — ahead of the government’s movement ban.

“This will be strictly adhered to without exception,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in a telephone interview. “We intend to ensure that the dreaded disease is checked.”

‘Movement ban’ could be extended longer than three days

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Photo Credit: Natural NewsNumber of Ebola cases is ‘increasing exponentially,’ World Health Organization warns

By Ethan A. Huff.

The Ebola crisis has taken a major turn for the worse as the World Health Organization (WHO) announces that the number of infected individuals is now “increasing exponentially.” The uptick is particularly concerning in Liberia, where the international agency says the worst is yet to come.

Among the 4,269 known cases of Ebola in West Africa, nearly 2,300, a little over half, have resulted in death. And roughly half of these deaths have occurred in Liberia, according to the United Nations, with the rest reportedly hailing from nearby Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.

In a recent announcement, WHO warned that the numbers appear to show an exponential increase in infections across West Africa, and that things will get worse before getting better. Underscoring the unusual spread of the disease, experts say Ebola is particularly problematic in the larger cities, and especially in those where public health facilities are lacking.

But the situation is most extreme in Liberia, where entire communities are facing rapid infection due to poor containment measures and a lack of medical personnel. According to data compiled by WHO, some 152 healthcare workers in Liberia are known to have contracted Ebola, and 79 of them have already died.

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Public Schools Forcibly Subject Students To ‘Meatless Monday’ Activism

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Photo Credit: Getty Images / Alex WongTaking a page from long-standing Christian tradition — particularly Catholic tradition — taxpayer-funded public schools across the United States are now denying children the option of eating meat for lunch one day each week.

For Catholics, and for different reasons, that day has been Friday for centuries. For American school children, the trendy new day of forswearing carnivorous deliciousness is Monday.

“Meatless Monday” bills itself as an international campaign “launched in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.” It was founded by Sid Lerner, a longtime Madison Avenue advertising executive.

The goal is to convince people to choose to give up meat one day each week because, as the Meatless Monday website explains, it’s “fantastic for the planet.”

And so, in the semi-rural town of Dripping Springs, Texas, for example, school district officials are choosing to force kids to forgo meat and poultry.

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Welfare Recipients Can Use Debit Cards for Marijuana

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Photo Credit: APWelfare recipients can’t use their EBT cards at liquor stores but they can at marijuana dispensaries in states such as Colorado that have legalized pot, Sen. Jeff Sessions revealed Tuesday.

The Alabama Republican announced that he was drafting legislation to close the welfare-for-weed loophole after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to him that marijuana shops were not off limits to EBT cards, which replaced food stamps, or other federal benefits.

“The federal government current spends roughly $750 billion each year on means-tested welfare programs across 80 different accounts. This money is administered by a vast, sprawling bureaucracy with little oversight and no moral vision,” said Mr. Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

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The Luby's Cafeteria Massacre: A Brutal Reminder to Restaurants Telling Customers "No Guns"

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Photo Credit: TownHallYesterday Panera Bread became another restaurant establishment asking customers to leave their guns at home, joining eateries like Chilis, Starbucks and stores like Target after pressure from anti-gun groups. Like other restaurant chains, Panera’s official policy hasn’t changed to an outright ban, but they’ve made clear customers carrying firearms for self-defense aren’t welcome.

This “please leave your guns at home” policy is catching on, but as more restaurants join Panera and others like it, it’s important to remind them of the horrifying Luby’s Cafeteria massacre.

In 1991 Texas residents were banned by law from bringing firearms into restaurants. That same year, a mad man with an intent to kill as many people as possible, crashed his truck into a Lubys Cafeteria in Killeen. The man got out of his vehicle and shot 50 people, killing 23 of them…

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MIT Study Suggests Marriage is Key to Closing Education Opportunity Gap

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Photo Credit: TownHall“Education is the most important predictor of income today,” President Obama stated last December during his remarks on the economy. In an attempt to improve education, Obama purportedly launched Race to the Top and encouraged states to revise their standards. The trouble is, Obama, as he so often does, got the solution wrong.

The administration’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top Initiative reportedly encouraged states to make unrealistic goals and “failed to focus on the core drivers of opportunity gaps.” New standards set in place via Common Core have also proved ineffective, and states continue to opt-out of the government’s push for a one-size-fits-all program.

So what is the answer? MIT economists David Autor and Melanie Wasserman suggest that encouraging a strong family units is key. According to their report “Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education…”

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Issa Letter: DOJ Tried To Coordinate IRS Scandal Response With Democrats

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Photo Credit: Newsmax A press official at the Department of Justice attempted to coordinate the leak of documents concerning the IRS targeting scandal with Democratic staffers, but accidentally called the wrong office, according to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa.

The official, which both Breitbart News and The Hill identified as Brian Fallon, called Oversight Friday afternoon.

The staffer who picked up the phone answered “Oversight Press,” according to Issa’s letter, which was sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday.

Thinking he had reached the office of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Democratic ranking member of the oversight committee, Fallon said that the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs would not okay the release of the documents, but that he was eager to do so anyway “before the Majority” – Issa’s office – could do so.

According to Issa’s letter, the documents concerned former Justice Department attorney Andrew Strelka, who worked with IRS Exempt Director Lois Lerner, who has been accused of unfairly targeting conservative groups.

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Obama Administration ‘Doubles Down’ on Fight Against Nuns

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Photo Credit: Pittsburgh Post – Gazette / NewscomThe Obama administration has decided to continue its legal battle against Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity that objects to Obamacare’s mandate that employee health plans cover contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

The order of Catholic nuns argues that the rule fashioned by the Department of Health and Human Services requires them to violate their religious beliefs by offering insurance coverage for 20 specific drugs and devices — some of which the nuns believe could destroy what they consider a human life.

If the Little Sisters of the Poor choose not to abide by the HHS mandate, they face devastating fines by the Internal Revenue Service that could result in millions of dollars a year being diverted from their mission of caring for elderly women and men.

Sarah Torre, a policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society who tracks the legal trail of the HHS mandate, said:

It’s really incredible, even after so many losses in federal court, that the Obama administration is doubling down to enforce this coercive mandate against religious organizations – even against charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor who do such necessary and effective work serving those in need.

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“Hail Hitler” Spray-Painted in New York

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Photo Credit: Benjamin Horn / Creative CommonsAuthorities are investigating after anti-Semitic graffiti was found spray-painted on a sidewalk in a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Rockland County.

A swastika and the words “Hail Hitler” were found scrawled inside a Star of David on Sunday along Morris Road in Spring Valley.

Many Holocaust survivors live in the area and Rabbi Yisroel Kahan said this opens old wounds.

“This is something that’s hateful and it’s a shame and it will not be tolerated,” Kahan said. “It’s a combination of ignorance, hate, spitefulness.”

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Democrat-Aligned Voter Registration Group Investigated For Fraud

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyCiting “numerous complaints about voter applications” submitted by the Democrat-aligned New Georgia Project, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp “is investigating allegations of forged voter registration applications and demanding records from a voter registration group with ties to one of the state’s highest ranking Democrats”.

A subpoena was sent to the New Georgia Project and its parent organization Third Sector Development on Tuesday. The organization is a project of the nonprofit organization Third Sector Development, which was founded and is led by House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams.

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Trey Gowdy Is Leading A Charge Against The Obama Admin That May Make Him Enemy #1 In The White House

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Photo Credit: Site.govSouth Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy proved this week that he is focused on much more than just his role at the helm of a special committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack. Although he announced recently that the first public hearings in that probe are slated for next week, the former prosecutor’s stance on a Libyan threat closer to home has resulted in legislation introduced this week.

According to the Washington Times, Gowdy and other Republican leaders have responded to the Obama administration’s decision to lower restrictions against Libyans training to become pilots and nuclear scientists at schools in the U.S.

The proposal, also backed by Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Robert Goodlatte, seek to counter Obama’s endorsement of opinions by some in the intelligence community that current restrictions against Libya should be scaled back.

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